Harshini Read online

  “No!” he heard R’shiel scream in anger, realising what he was doing.

  But he was too quick for her warning, and perhaps only she truly understood what was happening. The Defender jerked his sword clear and she collapsed on the ground with a smile of intense satisfaction.

  “Brak! Help me! Don’t let her die!” R’shiel cried, rushing to the First Sister’s side. She dropped to her knees beside the body of her foster-mother, her eyes glistening with furious, unshed tears.

  Joyhinia didn’t die immediately. The old bitch may have been witless, but her body clung tenaciously to life. For a moment Loclon was afraid that the wound had not been fatal. That would have been the ultimate irony—to survive, trapped in an old and ruined body racked with pain. R’shiel grabbed at her shoulders and shook the limp body in fury, but she was fading fast—too fast for R’shiel to stop it; too fast for her to call on her power to save Joyhinia’s broken body. Through a red wall of pain Loclon saw her, saw the look of anger and frustration in her eyes as he robbed her of the one pleasure she wanted more than anything else in this life—his death. It made everything worthwhile.

  Then he felt a sudden jerk, as if he was being ripped apart—as if some giant hand had reached inside of him and turned his body inside out. Darkness smothered him and he let out a wordless cry of triumph.

  Joyhinia Tenragan was dead.

  CHAPTER 40

  Tarja slept surprisingly well the night before his hanging. Perhaps it was because he was clean for the first time in weeks. Or perhaps it was just that his fate seemed so inevitable he had given up worrying about it.

  Whatever the reason, he woke at dawn feeling remarkably refreshed and far too healthy to dwell on the fact that he would most likely be dead in a few hours. As the small square of sky he could see through the cell’s only window changed from pink to blue, he dressed in the uniform Andony had left for him and sat down to wait, feeling nothing but a serene sense of fatalistic calm.

  It didn’t last long. Voices sounded in the hall outside, followed by the sounds of fighting, then the door to his cell flew open. The young man who opened it was wearing a captain’s uniform, panting heavily and grinning like a fool.

  “Captain Tenragan, sir! Commandant Warner sends his compliments and wondered if you’d like to forgo your hanging for a good fight, sir? Oh, and R’shiel said to say hello, too.”

  Tarja stared at the young captain. He was beyond being surprised. He had ceased being amazed by his ability to escape certain death some time ago—about the time he had gone to sleep a broken man and woken completely healed in this same cellblock more than a year ago. And he was long past being astonished at R’shiel’s ability to appear when he least expected it. She got him out of trouble almost as often as she landed him in it. But he was relieved she wasn’t the one who had found him. He had been ready to face death, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to face R’shiel.

  “Find me a sword.”

  The captain laughed and tossed Tarja his own blade. He was obviously having the time of his life. Tarja snatched it out of the air and followed him into the hall.

  Sir Andony and his men were lined up with their faces pressed against the wall as a score of Defenders expertly disarmed them. The young Karien knight looked stunned. He saw Tarja emerge from the cell and made to turn, but the Defender who stood behind him pushed him back against the wall.

  “How far you think you get?” he snarled over his shoulder.

  “Far enough,” Tarja replied with a grin, catching the mood of the Defenders around him. Every one of them looked delighted. These men were not trained to deal with defeat and the last few weeks with the Kariens in control of the Citadel had been eating away at them like slow burning acid. Now that they were finally doing something about it, there wasn’t a Defender in the room who could hide his glee.

  “What are you going to do with them, Captain…?”

  “Throw them into the cells for the time being,” the young man replied. “And the name’s Symin. You probably don’t remember me. I was a Lieutenant when you…”

  “When I deserted? It’s all right, Symin, you can say it.”

  “Well, I just didn’t want it to sound as if…you know…”

  Tarja smiled at the young man’s discomfort. “Yes. I know.”

  “You not get away with this!” Andony insisted in his broken Medalonian. Tarja looked at him and shook his head.

  “Sir Andony, why don’t you just shut the hell up,” he said in Karien, “before I decide to shut you up myself.”

  “Kill me if you want,” Andony declared angrily in his own language, lacking the words in Medalonian to express how he felt. “I will be welcomed into the House of the Overlord! You, on the other hand, will perish and freeze in the Sea of Despair! Don’t you think we were expecting something like this? By now the Citadel is swarming with Karien troops. You won’t get past the front door.”

  “Well, that’s our problem, isn’t it?” He turned to Symin. “You do have a plan for getting past the front door, don’t you?” he asked in Medalonian.

  “We’re taking back the Citadel,” Symin told him happily. “The gates are locked and by now we should have control of every key position in the city. Now we’ve got you out, we have to free Lord Jenga.”

  “Where’s he being held?”

  “We thought he was here with you, but he must have been moved.”

  Tarja’s brow furrowed. He kicked an overturned stool out of the way, grabbed Andony by the shoulder and turned him around.

  “Where have they taken the Lord Defender?”

  “Go to hell, you atheist pig!”

  Tarja hadn’t really expected any other response. Andony tensed, obviously expecting Tarja to hit him. It would have been a waste of time. Andony wanted to suffer for the Overlord. Dying simply meant granting his wish by sending him to meet his god sooner. But if Tarja couldn’t threaten his life, he could threaten his soul, and that, he suspected, would frighten him more than any promise of physical violence.

  “Symin, did you say R’shiel was here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then perhaps we should ask the demon child to have a word with Sir Andony,” he said in Karien to be certain the knight understood him. “How long do you think it will take her to corrupt his soul?”

  Symin looked at him blankly, but Andony paled.

  “I cannot be turned from the Overlord by any Harshini witch!”

  “This isn’t just any Harshini witch, Andony,” he said in a low, threatening voice. “This is the demon child. She is evil incarnate. She can turn you from the Overlord just by looking at you. If she touches you, your soul will belong to her forever. You cannot fight her. Even Xaphista fears her. One look from the demon child and you will drown in the Sea of Despair for an eternity.” He watched as Andony’s eyes widened with fear. A part of Tarja could not believe that a grown man could be so gullible, while another part of him silently thanked the Overlord for making his followers so vulnerable. “Do you really care that much about the Lord Defender?”

  Andony hesitated. Tarja met his eye and saw the defiance there. He shrugged and turned to Symin.

  “Fetch the demon child.”

  “No!” Andony cried in horror.

  “Where is the Lord Defender?”

  The young knight was torn between duty and his immortal soul. The decision was a terrible one. Finally his shoulders slumped and he looked at the floor in shame. “He’s in the caverns under the amphitheatre. They moved him there last night in case there was an attack on the cells.”

  “The caverns,” Tarja translated for the benefit of his comrades.

  “What did you say to him?” Symin asked curiously.

  “I threatened his soul.”

  “Clever,” he said with an approving nod, although he clearly had no idea what Tarja was talking about. “Sergeant Donel! Let’s get these Kariens into the cells. The Lord Defender is waiting for us!”

  It was not far from the Def
enders’ headquarters to the amphitheatre. As they ran through the deserted streets the occasional sound of metal against metal echoed between the buildings. A shout of alarm, in Karien, reached them from the direction of the armoury, then suddenly it was silenced. Tarja didn’t know if the civilians in the Citadel had been warned of the coup, but they must have instinctively known something was afoot. They didn’t see another soul on their journey. Even Tavern Street was deserted.

  When they reached the tunnel that led into the caverns, Tarja held up his hand to halt the troop. Symin didn’t seem to mind that he had automatically assumed command. He studied the entrance for a moment then waved his men forward. The tunnel entrance was deserted, as was the tunnel itself. They moved into the darkness cautiously, listening with every sense they possessed.

  The silence of the caverns pressed on Tarja like an invisible weight. They had once been stables, according to legend; carved out of the natural hill to house the legendary Harshini horses. Reaching far into the darkness, they stretched endlessly in a circle under the amphitheatre like a giant rabbit warren.

  Jenga could be anywhere.

  He glanced at Symin and silently signalled to him. The young captain nodded in understanding and headed towards the caverns on the left, taking half the troop with him. The other half followed Tarja into the caverns on the right.

  Torches mounted in brackets at uneven intervals pierced the darkness with puddles of flickering light. They moved swiftly and silently, checking the caverns as they went. Memories caught Tarja unawares as they inspected the caves. He smiled as the sergeant signalled the all-clear on the cavern where he had stolen his first kiss with a Novice whose name he could no longer remember; frowned as he passed the cavern where he’d broken the news to R’shiel about her true parentage. He knew these rooms well—he’d played here as a child with Georj. It was the best place in the Citadel to hide from Joyhinia. The best place to imagine they were heroes fighting off some implacable foe. They came here to practise their swordcraft, too, away from the critical eye of the Master at Arms. He could remember thinking he was quite a swordsman when he managed to slip his blunted blade through Georj’s guard, while R’shiel, barely old enough to keep up with them, had demanded she be allowed to try, even though their practice swords were taller than she was.

  “Captain!”

  Tarja turned at the whispered call. Symin’s sergeant, Donel, pointed ahead. A pool of light beckoned, brighter than the surrounding caverns. They were almost in the centre of the ring. If Symin and his men had moved at much the same pace, they would be approaching from the other side.

  Tarja nodded and signalled the order to move on. They crept like thieves through the darkness. Straining to listen, the silence bothered Tarja. He expected to hear something—the guards talking among themselves, the creak of leather or the scratch of metal armour as the Kariens moved about in the central cavern. But there was nothing. No sound disturbed the silence save for the hissing torches and the sound of his own breathing. He halted the men and waited. Listening intently.

  There was nothing to be heard, but Tarja could smell something in the air, something faint, and sweet, and disturbingly familiar. It took him a few moments to identify it. When he realised what it was, he dropped all pretence of stealth and broke into a run. He saw Symin coming from the other direction, apparently having reached the same terrible conclusion. Tarja skidded to a halt as he reached the cavern and let out a wordless cry of despair as the others rushed in behind him.

  It was blood he could smell. Fresh blood. The cavern was painted with it. It splattered the walls and pooled on the floor beneath their boots. Jenga lay in the centre of the carnage, his head almost severed from his body. He must have put up quite a fight. Squatting down, Tarja ran his finger through the bloody puddle at his feet. It was still faintly warm. Whoever had done this had done it recently. So recently that they were more than likely still down here in the caverns somewhere. He turned at the sound of someone retching.

  “Why?” Symin managed to ask in a voice strangled with emotion.

  Tarja didn’t answer him, although he knew the reason. This was the Kariens’ punishment for their temerity. It was the act of a spoiled child who had lost the game then spitefully broken the winner’s favourite toy so that nobody else could play with it. For a moment, he couldn’t speak. The rage he felt robbed him of any facility other than the desire to seek vengeance for the death of the only truly honourable man he had ever known. Donel looked at him with concern and touched his shoulder to get his attention.

  Tarja flinched and stood up so quickly the sergeant drew back from him in fear.

  “Spread out. Search the caverns. Whoever did this is still down here.”

  Nobody questioned him. The Defenders dispersed quickly, swords at the ready, and began searching again. Tarja stared at the gruesome carnage for a moment then turned away. Symin stood behind him, immobilised by shock. He looked as if he’d suddenly lost his innocence; as if he had only just realised this wasn’t a game.

  “Why?”

  “Because they could,” Tarja told him. “Because Jenga personified the Defenders. Because they knew they’d lost the Citadel and they wanted to make a point. Take your pick.”

  “Captain!”

  Tarja and Symin both turned at the cry. Donel and two of the Defenders were returning. Between them they dragged a struggling man, but it wasn’t a Karien they had caught. It was a Defender. His uniform was sprayed with a dark pattern of blood. Disbelief warred with a sort of resigned acceptance of the inevitable as Tarja realised who it was.

  “Gawn.”

  The man stared at him with the wild eyes of a fanatic. Tarja had known him on the southern border and thought him a poor example of the Defenders then. He could not imagine what had brought him to this. Nor did he particularly care. He carefully and deliberately handed his sword to Symin, then as Donel held him, he backhanded the younger captain across the face. All the rage he could not voice was behind the blow.

  Gawn’s head snapped back and he slumped in the arms of the sergeant, but when he focused his eyes on Tarja again, he was smiling. “That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it Tarja? Every time I get one up on you, you have to hit something.”

  Tarja flew at him, determined to kill Gawn with his bare hands. It took Symin and two other men to pull him off. Donel hauled Gawn to his feet as the captain wiped away the blood from his nose. Symin flung himself between Tarja and Gawn, forcibly holding Tarja back.

  “I know how you feel, Tarja,” Symin said urgently, as he strained to keep them apart. “But don’t let him get to you. He’ll hang for this. Justice will be served.”

  Tarja took a deep, deliberate breath and relaxed. He shook off the men around him, took a step backwards and held up his hands in a gesture of peace. Satisfied that he had averted cold-blooded murder, Symin nodded with relief and turned to issue his orders.

  As soon as his back was turned, Tarja snatched his sword from the young captain’s grasp and with one fluid movement he swung it in a wide arc. Nobody had time to stop him, or even cry out in protest. He sliced Gawn’s head from his shoulders, barely missing Donel as the sergeant ducked under the blow. Blood sprayed the room in a fountain of death as Gawn’s head landed with a sickening thump and rolled to a stop at Symin’s feet.

  Donel threw the headless body away from him in disgust and stood there, drenched in blood, staring at it in stunned disbelief. The other Defenders did not move, frozen in shock. Symin wore a look of absolute incredulity.

  Tarja threw the sword atop Gawn’s headless, twitching body.

  “Justice has been served,” he said.

  Without waiting for an answer, Tarja turned and walked back into the darkness of the caverns.

  CHAPTER 41

  R’shiel reluctantly let go of Joyhinia’s limp body as the full repercussions of her death hit. She slumped against the body and closed her eyes. Every muscle trembled and she was sweating profusely in the stuffy room
. Brak squatted beside her.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No.”

  She waited, expecting some snide remark, but he said nothing. She opened her eyes and looked at him curiously. “What’s this? No reprimand?”

  “There was nothing you could have done.”

  “At least we won’t have to worry about deposing the First Sister,” Garet remarked, as he looked down dispassionately at the body and the spreading stain on the rug.

  “It’s far from over, Garet,” R’shiel warned.

  “It is for the First Sister,” he shrugged. “Now, if you will excuse me, we have some rather angry Karien dukes to take care of. Lieutenant, see that the body is removed and get that rug out of here, too.” He stepped back as the Defenders hastened to obey.

  Brak stood up and held his hand out to her. “There’s nothing more you can do here, R’shiel.”

  With a last look at Joyhinia’s body, R’shiel took his hand as he pulled her to her feet. Garet led the way out of the First Sister’s office and down the broad staircase into the street. When they emerged into the sunlight, they discovered that pandemonium had broken loose in the city. The streets were crowded with people being held back by a line of red-coated Defenders who strained against the surging mob. Garet Warner walked into the centre of the small clearing that his men had forced, to confront the six dukes of Karien who had invaded the Citadel. Their faces were pale, their eyes glazed with shock. The crowd was shouting at them. R’shiel could only make out some of the words but their mood was ugly. There were quite a few Sisters of the Blade among them who were stirring up the passions of the mob. Through the raucous melee she heard the words “Karien pigs!” “Murderers!” and a few other insults that shocked her with their crudeness.

  She glanced at Brak who shrugged with resignation. “You can’t really blame them. The Defenders may have taken back the Citadel, but there’s still a Karien army camped outside and a lot of people have lost a great deal since Medalon surrendered.”